Kiss
by alice in a coma
Summary: Based on Dylan O'Brien's hint at Comic-Con that "The kiss isn't just a kiss" and the brief snippet we got in the up-coming footage for this half of the season. One-shot.


The attack is a disaster, but Lydia could have told them that before they even launched it because, honestly, all of their attacks are disasters. With all the failed plans they attempt to execute, she sometimes thinks her life is slowly turning into one crazy episode of _Scooby-Doo, _only the monsters are real and their talking dog just-so-happens to be a teenage werewolf instead.

She gets separated from Stiles when he chases off after an erratic Scott, and she's left alone in the dark corridors of the abandoned wing of the hospital. Without Allison to protect her or Stiles' arm to clasp tightly, she moves quietly down the hallway, jumping at the slightest unusual noise.

Turning the corner, she gasps as she comes face to face with Stiles, hunched over in pain. She almost misses the way his hand presses against his side, keeping the blood from flowing out too quickly. "Oh, god," Lydia breathes as she takes it in, dipping down immediately to pull his other arm over her shoulders. "Stiles," she says, clearly but also keeping her voice low, "I need you to walk with me. Please. Just across the hall." He's too heavy for her to drag, but luckily, with a groan, he complies as best as he can, and they make it across the hall to one of the empty rooms without anyone happening upon them.

"Oh, god," Stiles moans as she helps him sit on the edge of the table in the center of the room. He pulls his hand away to examine the injury in his side, and Lydia nearly vomits at the sight. It's not so much the blood; it's the wound itself, and the creature that gave Stiles such an injury.

"Who did this?" Lydia asks urgently. It doesn't matter much at this point, she thinks, but she has to say _something _or she's going to faint.

"The twins," Stiles manages to say, breathing heavily, pressing his hand back into his side. Lydia blanches; suddenly, she feels a guilty party in this, complacent in Stiles' murder. Because that's what this is - or is going to be, if she doesn't do something quick to fix it.

"Oh, god," he says desperately as another wave of pain hit him. He falls forward slightly, but Lydia is there before he can get very far. Catching him by his arms, she pushes him back up to a sitting position, trying to think of what - anything! - to do to reverse this.

"I'm gonna die," Stiles says, total and complete terror in his eyes.

"No," Lydia says, shaking her head. "You're not." As usual, he doesn't listen to her.

"Oh my god, I'm gonna die." Tears well up in his eyes. "I don't want to die. I can't. I'm too young. I haven't even had sex yet. Dammit, Lydia, I can't die a virgin!"

It is ridiculous; the most ridiculous thing he could possibly say at this moment in time, when there are so many other things to be worried about, like how his father might fair without him, but his degree of upset over this particular possibility comforts Lydia momentarily. It is, after all, the most Stiles-like thing he could possibly say.

"Stiles, listen to me," she says, taking his face in her hands. "You're not gonna die."

"No," he replies, more softly this time. "I am. Ugh - Lydia." His breathing is becoming more and more labored by the second. "Lydia, I can feel it."

"No!" she snaps, clasping tightly to one of his hands. "No, Stiles, you stay with me. You can't die! I - forbid you!"

He chuckles ever-so-slightly at this, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. "I don't really think this is something you can forbid, Lydia." His grins falters as he groans in pain once again, pitching forward ever so slightly.

"Stiles!" Lydia pleads. "Stiles, no." Another wave of pain hits him, and Lydia knows this may, in fact, very well be the end, so she does the one thing she can think to do in a situation like this: taking his face between her hands once again, she darts forward and kisses him.

Lydia has had her fair share of butterflies in her lifetime; her first kiss with Jackson was an explosion of them. But she always assumed that the fireworks analogy was an exaggeration. As she plants her lips on Stiles', however, she finds, with a burst of color, that she was so very, very wrong in that assumption: the fireworks are most definitely real.

Stiles pulls back first with a sharp intake of breath, and at first Lydia think he's in pain, but when she looks down at his side once again, it is glowing with a brilliant sort of light. He pulls back his hand in shock, and when the light fades a moment later, he lifts up his shirt to reveal -

Nothing. Not a scratch or tear. No blood. Nothing.

They lock eyes briefly, then look back at his side. A quick poke at the skin reveals that it is, in fact, healed.

"What did you do?" Stiles demands.

"Me?" Lydia snaps back. "I didn't do anything! I...I don't know."

"Lydia," he says, his eyes big with wonder. "I think you just healed me."

"That's not possible," she whispers a little desperately.

"Neither are werewolves. Or banshees."

"But in everything I've read, _nothing _said that banshees could _heal _people," she says, pacing.

"Yeah, but what you're reading is based on three-thousand-year-old mythology. Some things could easily have fallen by the way side as the knowledge was passed on." Lydia sighs, agitated, rubbing a hand on her temple. Stiles jumps up from his seat on the table and crosses to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, this is a good thing, remember? You did just save my life. Hey, come here." He pulls Lydia tightly against him, running a hand through her hair as she settles into the embrace.

"You almost died, Stiles," she whispers as she wraps her arms around his torso. "If I hadn't been here - "

"It doesn't matter," he says. "You were here." He pulls away, and Lydia takes a deep breath, pushing her hair behind her ears.

Running a hand through his hair nervously, Stiles asks, "So - was that, uh, was that just a heat of the moment thing or...? The - you know, the kiss, I mean."

Lydia's cheeks go pink and she busies herself in her purse, looking for her phone. "Oh," she says. "Yeah. Something like that."

Stiles frowns, looking a little skeptical. "Oh. Okay."

She glances at him once then back at her phone. "Yeah. Well, we should find the others," she says and moves by him toward the door.

"Yeah." Just as she reaches out for the door handle, Stiles adds, "Hey, Lydia, wait a second, uh - "

Suddenly, he reaches out for her right arm and spins her around, almost expertly managing to get one arm around her waist and the other in her hair just as he ducks his head down and kisses her. She's not expecting it - even now, she's forever surprised by the amount of initiative Stiles can take - but he takes the lead just fine: the way his mouth moves, urgent against hers, is like the wake up call she's been needing since she first appeared at Stiles' door earlier this spring.

When he finally pulls away, a little breathless, he says, "Thanks," and moves past her towards the door, and Lydia stands there, speechless, a little dumbstruck.

"You coming?" Stiles says, holding out a hand to her as he cautiously opens the door out into the hallway. Lydia isn't entirely sure what he's really referring to - the hallway or whatever this _thing _is that's suddenly (or not-so-suddenly) developed between them - but she takes his hand anyway. She's prepared for both.


End file.
